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ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 383 Part 2

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 383: Side Story 5 – Isogenic Dragon Cells – Part 2

「Basically, every time this bastard kills you, you get some sort of strange conditions inflicted upon your avatar. Needless to say, I was trying to fight it over and over again, and I was being killed over and over again, until eventually my race just changed on its own.」

「This is……」

「Apparently, the name of this strange affliction is “Infection: Phase ○”. And the race change is around Phase Ten or so. So I guess it can be said that each of the colored dragons possess some sort of virus-like ability that allows them to infect the players. And who knows if the race change is going to be worst of it.」

At that moment it went without saying that both Rust and Mold thought about the very same thing.

No matter how much you would try to avert your gaze or justify things, being on the side of Noirlind in this conflict was going to be bad news for them.

Thanks to a rather strange and lucky turn of fate, it turned out that the destination of Rust, Mold and Vigilance was the same place: the village of the People of the Forest and the facility allowing the players to lift the level cap off of their avatars. And since they were going in the same direction anyways, Rust, Mold and Vigilance decided to form a temporary party. There were a few reasons for this, but the most important of them all were as such: there was no need to tell Vigilance about the fact that the guild “Wolfgang” was most probably going to side with Noirlind in the Dragon War conflict. It was also for the sake of safety, since the area boss of this forest seemed to have evolved into something even more dangerous and sinister from before for some bizarre reason, as well as the fact that due to increased players traffic on this continent bandits and Player Killers were becoming more and more of a common occurrence.

So the three of them decided to group up and proceeded through the forest area together.

「I actually happened to catch a glimpse of the tri-headed Tyrannousaurus before, and this thing is actually crazy. No matter how you look at it, there is no way in hell that this monster is a simple area boss. This is some next level, raid boss or maybe even Unique Monster level shit.」

「I heard that this monster is actually a true difficulty spike, since its intelligence is really high and it can actually assess the danger, and understands the concepts of high risk and high reward.」

「……Can a simple monster AI really be that detailed? …… And wait, how come you know that?」

「Eh!? No, I mean, umm……」

「…… One of our acquaintances was apparently dumb enough to rush in on it and try to solo this thing.」

「Ahh, yeah, that explains it. No matter how you look at it, I think that soloing this thing is pretty much impossible. But verifying its movements is something that even the solo player can easily do by themselves.」

In order to cut the conversation short and avoid any further questions, Rust sells Vigilance an explanation just like that. And technically she was not lying here, since it was the truth that their acquaintance was trying to fight this thing.

However, there was no way in hell that Rust would tell anyone that this acquaintance of theirs actually managed to befriend (allegedly) the beast and use its power in order to slay the Raid Boss monster that just happened to appear at the same location. That would seems suspiciously convenient and would raise even further questions. And Rust could absolutely not allow herself to disclose that it was this “acquaintance” of theirs that was responsible for the Dracarus TyrannoCerberus in the first place.

Of course, the root cause for the tri-headed Dinosaur appearing here was Tottori the Simane, treated by everyone in here as a Hero, but this information is something that is yet to be made public.

「That being said, it’s been ages since we have encountered any monsters at all.」

「Well, that’s because we are moving in such a way to avoid any unnecessary enemy encounters in advance.」

「Eh?」

「…… Mold, did you already forget? Some player classes possess the abilities that let them detect monsters in advance.」

「Eh, but I thought that Akitsu Akane……」

「This guy is clearly something else.」

When it comes to ShangriLa Frontier, the job of a Ninja is something that actually only pretends to be a Ninja. When it comes to the skills they learn the Ninjas can be the classic stealth characters or glass cannons, and the ninjustsu they learn can have as much of the utility as you are willing to give them.

And then there is Akitsu Akane, a ninja possessing the ability to breathe literal fire out of his mouth.

「To tell you the truth, I have already ventured throughout the whole length and width of this stupidly large forest.」

「…… Is that so?」

「Yeah, and let me tell you this: as far as I know, there are no cities on this continent, at least not in the sense that we know them from the old continent. Sure, there are settlements where the NPCs live, but that’s about it. If you think about the old continent like a place riddled with dots and lines, then this here place is like a huge circle with a single dot right in the middle of it.」

It was a really sloppy way to phrase it, but the two could actually kind of understand what exactly Vigilance was getting at. Sometimes it’s just that way, you have a clear image of what you want to say in your mind, but when it comes to actually saying it out loud, it just does not translate all that well.

「What other places are there on this continent? Could you tell from the edges of the forest?」

「Ahh, there was a desert out there for sure.」

Rust and Mold exchanged quick glances. From what Akitsu Akane told them, once he managed to break out of the sea of trees, the place he managed to arrive at was the marshes. And no matter how dense or mentally challenged you may be, there is no way to mistake a desert for a marsh, at least in terms of humidity.

「…… A branching path? No, it is more than probable that as expected, you can reach different bioms from all the way over here.」

「What are you guys talking about?」

「Ahh, you see, we happened to hear that the next area on this continent is going to be a volcano! Just how crazy is that, huh?」

「A volcano? Hmm, I cannot really picture something like that in a place like this…… But who knows? Maybe it’s the truth, or maybe that’s just a hoax. You never know. But just to be on the safe side for the future, you guys should really see to it that the source of your information is a legitimate one, you know?」

「Ahaha…… Yeah, I guess that you’re right.」

At the very least, it would really be undesirable if any other player managed to reach the wetlands at this stage of the game.

So far Mold managed to slither his way around the subject just fine, and Rust could only answer him with a dry smile once he turned towards her.

「…… So, do you guys know where exactly we should be heading right now?」

「It’s really great that both sun and moon follow a fixed path here, don’t you think?」

「Don’t tell me you’re going to use such methods to predict our path?」

However, today’s ShanFro weather was really cloudy, so that plan would most certainly not work here.